All posts tagged College Football

Syracuse running back Prince-Tyson Gulley runs for a touchdown against West Virginia in the Pinstripe Bowl.

The Syracuse football program spent the last 15 months floating in a bizarre state of NCAA purgatory. The Orange no longer identified with the Big East but couldn’t yet bolt for its new home in the Atlantic Coast Conference. They belonged nowhere, still trapped in a conference they already abandoned.

On Saturday, Syracuse’s future finally became its present. The Orange played their final football game as a member of the Big East, a 38-14 victory in the Pinstripe Bowl over longtime conference rival West Virginia. The game marked the last chapter of Syracuse’s football relationship with a conference it helped create in 1979.

“Things change in life, and we understand that,” Syracuse athletic director Daryl Gross said. “This is something we’ve been able to grasp for a long time.”

In many ways, the Pinstripe Bowl felt like a sendoff to the current iteration of the Big East, exemplifying the changing landscape across college football. Read More »

Two guys who never went to college are naming the biggest building on the Rutgers University campus.

“We’re making up for lost time,” joked Tom Mendiburu, who along with brother Mike founded information-technology services provider High Point Solutions in 1996 — and will now watch the Scarlet Knights at High Point Solutions Stadium in Piscataway, N.J.

Rutgers will officially announce the sale of the naming rights to its 54,000-seat, recently expanded football stadium at a press conference Tuesday, and so Mendiburu deferred discussing most of the agreement’s specifics until then. He did describe the arrangement as a “10-year, multi-million dollar deal” and noted that the sponsorship is part of what he and his brother view as “some pretty aggressive investments.” Read More »

The field at Yankee Stadium was converted for Saturday’s NCAA college football game between Notre Dame and Army.

When Army and Notre Dame regularly played college football games at Yankee Stadium in the first half of the 20th century, the Fighting Irish built a large following of “subway alumni” — New Yorkers with no connection to the school who became fans.

While many will take the no. 4 or D trains to the stadium on Saturday, the day also marks the first time in recent memory that the Metro-North Railroad will offer a direct link to a big-time college football game. (Sorry, Fordham doesn’t count.) Read More »

Notre Dame, which will play Navy in October at the New Meadowlands Stadium and Army in November at Yankee Stadium, takes the field at Giants Stadium against Maryland in the last Kickoff Classic in 2002.

On Thursday night, dozens of Miami Hurricanes fans packed into Brother Jimmy’s BBQ on Lexington Avenue. During Miami’s 45-0 win over Florida A&M, they sang fight songs, high-fived and welcomed with open arms the start of the new college football season.

“It’s a reunion,” said Joshua Newman, who graduated from Miami in 2009. “You come here and see people you never expected to see here.”

It’s also a windfall for the local bars that get reputations as college football bars for particular schools and stay packed all day Saturday. Matt Shendell, who owns both the Ainsworth and the Hill, said patrons start arriving at 10 a.m. for games and many fans stay until the night time, creating big business.

“We’re very fortunate we’ve got business all day on Saturday when a lot of other places don’t,” Shendell said. “Saturdays are crazy. People are so passionate about their team and we try to make it just a place where people can go meet up with their college buddies and watch the game.’’

After the jump, a handy guide to the quasi-official bars where fans of some major college teams gather in New York, according to each school’s alumni clubs. Read More »